


Encounters of the (Meta)physical Kind

by LittleRaven



Category: Firefly, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 17:18:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17626379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/pseuds/LittleRaven
Summary: They both know control.It always comes back to the body.





	Encounters of the (Meta)physical Kind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JehanetteProuvaire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JehanetteProuvaire/gifts).



She is not the type for romance—or rather, not the kind usually referred to as romantic, the monogamous affair—but Inara doesn’t mind the thought of someone who made no demands, even negotiated ones. Having just one person like that. 

Everyone needs to relax; everyone needs people. People, like many other animals, are social, and easy to wear out. That’s clear enough. Companion training teaches psychology. It also teaches her how to work with it, with others and above all when it comes to herself. 

Control. Inara has emotions, desires. They can’t master her, and they don’t. She feels them, and she lets them be. It’s how she’s gotten this far; all those years of training, and only a few more before she makes house priestess of Madrassa. She’s planning on it. It’s the only natural outcome of what she’s devoted herself to becoming, body, mind and soul. 

Too bad, her body says one day. An injury in the war; her refusal to stay shuttered inside the safer core planets; Nandi, the friend she couldn’t let die.

Trying to do a Companion’s work outside the guild’s protection is at risk at the best of times, in the best of places. War is never the best of either. 

Her stomach blossoms with blood. Her hands fold above it tight, despite what she knows: that it’s not enough, she needs help and it won’t come. 

Then he does come, the desert dust shaking off his dark clothes, his light hair. Him and, Inara learns later, the ones he brought with him when a girl had sent a wild call out into the empty—or often worse, occupied—reaches of Outer Rim space. 

Dangerous. The call and anyone willing to answer it. But there he is, bending over her, a hand on her cheek as she breathes more ragged with time, with the sudden fear of a man she didn’t bring with her and the hope of someone who wants to live. Inara hears the shouting, voices which must include his own, but what she remembers after is the touch on her face, warmth that didn’t come from the life seeping out of her, and the peace that wouldn’t allow her any recourse but to faint. 

It always comes back to the body. 

 

Inara wakes to a different kind of comfort. The sheets aren’t the fine silks of her own, a benefit of the Guild and the clients she attracts for it, but they are well-made and soft, tucked in around her. There is Nandi, sitting by her. 

She reaches out, the stretch of the movement pulling a gasp out of her. Nandi squeezes her hand. 

“You’ve done your part, now Inara. Just need you to keep doing it by sitting still and not getting any more hurt.”

There’s a knock, then. Nandi glances at the door and says, “Pretty as he might be, he’s not getting in the way of that.”

“Who?”

She turns her face towards it as it opens, just enough so she can hear his apology being acknowledged and rendered ineffective by the care of her friend. Nandi returns to her. 

“A little extra help, by way of a call from Lucy. A Jedi General. Name of Skywalker.” 

 

Of course. Only a Jedi would be around to respond to a message such as this one had been, and only a Jedi would actually help. At least, Inara thinks so; she knows there are people out here who don’t necessarily trust them. She knows the war has them taxed. But she knows they serve a purpose, just as she does. 

Too, she is a Companion—if he hadn’t come to help the needy, he would have come for her. 

Just as he has again, undeterred now by Nandi’s efforts to let her rest, as Inara has overridden them. She will recover all the faster once she has gotten the diplomatic business over with. 

He is needed at the war, Inara is sure, and will be happy to let her be as soon as she releases him from the duty of protecting someone of her station. 

Convincing him of that proves harder than she initially imagines. 

General Skywalker insists on visiting her while she’s in bed, not wishing to cause her undue stress with regard to her injury. 

“I am sorry, milady,” he repeats, just as earnest as when she’d heard him the first time through that gap in the door. “I felt it was imperative to see how you were before I left.”

Look he does. Concerned, certainly, as a Jedi should be; a little awkward when he speaks, a little too direct when he takes her in, as a Jedi shouldn’t. She supposes the war makes them Knights and Generals too young nowadays. Inara meets his eyes and he doesn’t look away. 

“That is kind, and welcome. I know this must take you out of your way. As you can see, I’m doing quite well. Perhaps a bit tired,” she laughs. “But I’ll be fine and back home on Sihnon soon enough. Thanks to the help you provided my friend.”

“I’d say it’s the least I can do, but it’s dangerous out here. Anything could happen in a war zone.”

Every word brings him closer; he is unable to communicate without movement. The awkwardness falls away with his increasing resolve. Very well. He is not entirely unsuited. No, she thinks, remembering the gentleness of their first true meeting, and the way he’d soothed her when she’d been unable to summon calm for herself. Not unsuited at all, if young—and besides, she doesn’t believe anyone can be old enough for war. 

“With the Separatists around, I don’t think you should leave yet. Not without an escort.” 

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” she says. “It’s a war zone, you are needed—”

“Elsewhere, yes. Which is why I can’t provide it yet. You’re safer here, until I or someone else can come and take you.” 

 

Someone else never comes. Inara is not surprised. They both knew as they spoke what little chance there was for a Jedi to take time from a military mission for a civilian in need, and how lucky she has been at his being around at all. 

In the meantime, it seems this planet has become a good base from which he can operate, and when he’s not running his mission, he’s stopping to sit in the chair by her bed.

She doesn’t mind General Skywalker’s company. It’s pleasant to speak to someone from the world she knows at the Republic’s center, though they don’t quite move in the same circles. What the Companions Guild and the Jedi Order share with regard to spirituality does not bring them together in practice. Jedi eschew worldly wealth; Companions live off of it and display it as a tool of their trade. Sex isn’t banned to the Jedi, and they are as untied to their lovers as any Companion, but they can’t afford them. Certainly not one as desired as Inara has worked to be. 

The effect of her lifelong efforts pleases her, generally. It makes her adept at speaking, and above all being heard. She can expect to have full attention when she asks for it. This time is no different, except in how it’s better. She smiles, she speaks softly, and when he smiles back they both know it’s just conversation. He can’t hire her, entertaining him isn’t work. She can listen and speak when she wants, and he is eager to let her. All the benefits of her profession, without the complications she has to navigate in order to manage her clients’ feelings and end her services on a positive note for all involved. 

It’s natural to feel this. She’s used to only having this experience with her fellow Companions, but of course she can have it with a Jedi. How not? They were the same, in their detachment, their control. Their mindfulness, awareness of being. 

Inara thinks of that gaze when he first stepped through the door, and the warmth in it altogether different from the peace he could emanate. He never looks below her face, but she’s more aware of her body, and she doesn’t believe it’s due to her ruined clothes needing to be replaced with those of Nandi’s girls. It’s as if he’s aware, not of what she’s wearing, not of what it looks like on her, but of her. 

The Force as he uses it could provide much, for himself and for those he chose to help. Enhanced senses. Before him, she has never had occasion to experience it herself. She wonders if he had felt her relax as she fainted. He must have. Can he feel her memory of it during their conversation, every conversation? Strange, how a man as energetic as he seems to be can bring this to her. 

She thinks of him, young, attracted and attractive, that bit of awkwardness before it had melted away. 

“This is strange, someone entertaining a Companion in distress. Usually it’s the other way around.”

There. It’s back, now with a flush on his face, though he seems pleased. He clears his throat. 

“I’m happy to help, milady.” The blush darkens, and now there’s a bit of chagrin too. “Not that I meant—I’m sorry.” He looks it. 

Inara takes pity. If he hadn’t realized how obvious he was being, he has now. Shaming him is not her intent. She reaches for his metal hand; surprised, he lets her take it. 

“Don’t worry,” she tells him, squeezing it softly while looking him in the eye. “I understand, and it’s been enjoyable so far. Which,” and she notes how he looks right back into her, unwavering despite his earlier embarrassment, “I am fairly sure you know is true.” 

He lifts the hand she holds, and kisses hers. 

Unexpected, but courtly. Knightly. She allows the shiver. 

He slides the other one, the one he’d soothed her with, into her hair and angles her head for the kiss. 

Not knightly, she thinks, her free hand moving to his neck. Though there’s a clumsiness belying his usual grace of movement; he’s never been this kind of rude before. Inara doesn’t laugh, recalling his blush. She smiles into his mouth and draws back slightly. What he knows of the Force, she can match with what she knows of the body. 

Breathing his breath, she says, “Good, Anakin. Now let me.”

He tries to climb into her lap; the weight tugs at the half-healed wound on her belly; he feels it and even as she winces draws away. 

"Sorry, I'm sorry—"

She drags him back to her, him stumbling to sit on the bed, and then grabs his shoulders as she pulls herself onto his lap instead. Her dress has ridden up to her knees. He stares at them, no longer restricting his eyes to her face. She takes his hands and sets them on her skin, right below the cloth. 

"Well?" Inara looks up at him, eyebrow raised, mouth slanted in a smile. 

His hands go up fast, barely stopping to cup her as they get past her thighs, and then the dress is caught in the ends of her hair; her breasts have only just shaken free of it before they're caught in his grip. He looks at her, nude on his fully-dressed lap, as if she's the Madonna of old. It makes her feel more naked than the lack of clothing; he's been making her feel this naked from the start, she realizes. She has needed this to know it.

Impatient for once, Inara brings her hands back up to his shoulders, using them again to pull herself up higher. She slides them up his neck, his hair, and pushes his head down to her breasts. There, that's got him doing what he's wanted to do. He mouths them slowly, reverently. His metal hand is on her back now, keeping her close; the other tugs at her nipple one more time before going back down to palm her cunt. She rides it—eyes closed, head thrown back, finally free of the dress—she pushes against it, pressing it between her and the hardness waiting for her underneath it. Anakin groans. Her eyes open. “Good,” she repeats, “good.” 

Her hands loosen in his hair—he protests—she pulls at his robes. He stops protesting. Unhurried, purposeful, she tugs at his belt, fingers pausing after his trousers are down, deciding whether to keep stripping him or take him as he is, bouncing in her hands while his clothes rub against her thighs. Anakin groans again. “Tell me,” she murmurs, holding him, brushing the soft skin covering him with the pads of her fingers, her palm sliding up, cupping him. “Please,” he sounds near tears, his voice is so ragged and hoarse, and in fact there is a bit of wetness in his eyes; moved to tenderness, Inara is about to have mercy, but he stops her. “I want to feel, well, feel more.” He pulls the clothes off himself, what he can get over his head; she helps him with the trousers. He lets her feel up his thighs, but then he tugs hers back down to them, and slides her forward, flush against him. 

“Here,” she takes his hands and guides them to her backside, then between her thighs. She opens them wider under his touch, brings fingers both flesh and metal to her cunt—groans herself at the contrast—releases them to bring her own back over her skin to her front and down again, teaching him to return the favor. “Feel.”

He does. She hums, catches her breath as he pulls her apart and takes the plunge. Caught on him, her hands scramble to find purchase around his neck, feeling too. His mouth is on her shoulder, nuzzling, biting up her neck, her lips; he noses at her hair falling forward over her cheeks; he rubs around her cunt, palms pressing into her cheeks and thighs. 

She rides him again, doing some feeling of her own—his warmth spreading inside her as surely as her legs did on the outside. He comes first, shaking, stroking her backside after, then getting back to work. 

Gratified, she pets his hair, and he plays with hers, tugging the dark curls back from her face. He kisses her again, then gently pushes her back down on the bed.

She looks up at Anakin from the pillow. He picks at the sheets, realizing she’ll need new ones. She pulls him back down with her anyway. 

“It can wait, can’t it?” Or he wouldn’t have stayed at all. “Come on.” Smiling, he joins her properly and she brushes away the tears that have escaped into his sweat, mingled salt, smiling back. 

Inara is happy to find Anakin a quick student.


End file.
